Apr 21 2008
Simpson, the bloke with the donkey
John Simpson Kirkpatrick was an 18 year old Geordie who jumped ship in Australia in 1910. He became known as ‘the bloke with the donkey‘.
He ended up at ANZAC Cove on 25 April 1915 and rescued more than 300 wounded soldiers. He was killed less than four weeks later.
Simpson carried no arms.
Jack Kirkpatrick set sail as a stoker on board the SS Yeddo, bound for South America and Australia, where he found himself working in a hell-hole under impossible conditions. When the Yeddo arrived at Newcastle, New South Wales, Jack and thirteen other crewmen jumped ship, a serious offense in the Merchant Marine.
But Jack was now in Australia, a country for which he had always expressed a special affection. He tramped around the continent for 5 years and made a name for himself as a Trade Union activist, then enlisted in the Australian Infantry Forces, believing it would give him the chance to get back to England.
At Gallipolli
Enlisting under the name of Jack Simpson, and allotted to the 3rd Field Ambulance, Australian Army Medical Corps, he landed on Gallipoli with the covering force at dawn on the 25 April 1915.
Refusing to carry a gun, he proceeded to fetch wounded men back to the field hospital with the help of a donkey. There was no saddle, stirrups or reins ,so Simpson made a head stall and lead from bandages and field dressings for the first trip.
He lifted the wounded on to the donkey and held them as he guided the donkey to the beach, later fashioning a saddle from bags and blankets and begging for bits of rope for the donkey’s head stall and lead.
To demonstrate his admiration for Simpson, the commanding medical officer, Colonel Sutton, took off his own Red Cross armband to tie around the donkey’s head.
Duffy the Donkey was declared an official member of the unit.
Bahadur, bravest of the brave
Simpson would start at dawn, making the 2.5km trip through sniper fire and shrapnel at keast 15 times a day, often until 3.00 a.m. The route took him up Shrapnel Gully, the supply route to the front line, down into Monash Valley and on to the deadly zone around Quinn’s Post where the opposing trenches were only 15m apart. Leaving his donkey under cover, he would crawl forward to collect the wounded and carry them to the dressing station.
Day and night he worked cheerfully and unconcernedly amid fierce shrapnel and rifle-fire. So valued was his work that he was allowed to operate separately, camping with his donkey, Duffy, at the Indian mulecamp.
He was known to his fellow diggers as ‘the bloke with the donkey’, a byword for courage, the Indian troops called him Bahadur - bravest of the brave.
All up, Jack Simpson rescued more than 300 wounded soldiers - until the day that Duffy trotted down to the beach with a soldier on his back, but without Simpson.
Despite two recommendations for the Empire’s highest award, the Victoria Cross, and one for the Distinguished Conduct Medal, they have all been denied.
